LORD COALSTOUN AND HIS WIG—COMMENDATOR BOTHWELL’S HOUSE—LADY
ANNE BOTHWELL—MAHOGANY LANDS AND FORE-STAIRS—THE
KRAMES—CREECH’S SHOP.
A portion of the High Street facing St Giles’s Church was called the
_Luckenbooths_, and the appellation was shared with a middle row of
buildings which once burdened the street at that spot. The name is
supposed to have been conferred on the shops in that situation as being
_close shops_, to distinguish them from the open booths which then
lined our great street on both sides; _lucken_ signifying closed. This
would seem to imply a certain superiority in the ancient merchants of
the Luckenbooths; and it is somewhat remarkable that amidst all the
changes of the Old Town there is still in this limited locality an
unusual proportion of mercers and clothiers of old standing and reputed
substantiality.
[Illustration: Tolbooth and Luckenbooths—looking East.]
Previous to 1811, there remained unchanged in this place two tall
massive houses, about two centuries old, one of which contained the
town mansion of Sir John Byres of Coates, a gentleman of figure in
Edinburgh in the reign of James VI., and whose faded tombstone may
yet be deciphered in the west wall of the Greyfriars Churchyard. The
Byreses of the Coates died out towards the end of the last century, and
their estate has since become a site for streets, as our city spread
westwards. The name alone survives in connection with an alley beneath
their town mansion—_Byres’s Close_.